Blog Roundup: Editors’ Picks, August 9-13

As you get ready to return to the grind, make sure you’re caught up on what you might have missed this past week. Ms. rounds up the best feminist reads on the web, from West Point’s lesbian subculture to a trans storyline featured on Degrassi to Queen Latifah’s bedroom. Plus: (possibly) the most sexist baseball announcer EVER.

Campus Progress’ Lisa Gillespie uses a recent New York Times piece on the relevance of the Ebell Club, an L.A.-based women’s organization established in 1897 to serve as a university setting at a time when education was believed to harm women’s health, as a jumping-off point to remind us that the deeply entrenched “boys club” still exists.

Hit Canadian teen show Degrassi, known for its challenging and inclusive storylines, recently began its 10th season with the introduction of a trans teen transfer student named Adam. This week Adam’s storyline came to a head, putting transphobia, anti-trans abuse and teen mental and emotional health in the spotlight. Care2 has more.

Last week the paparazzi snapped photos of Queen Latifah getting cozy with her “personal trainer” and rumored long-time partner, Jeanette Jenkins, informally outing her. The images didn’t exactly come as a shock, as the Queen’s sexual preference has been the subject of speculation and rumors for years, but the pictures did instigate a new round of conjecture. Jamilah King’s take over at Colorlines: “It’s Time for Everybody to Get Out of Queen Latifah’s Bedroom”.

And finally, Rob Dibble, sportscaster for the Washington Nationals baseball team, was announcing a game when he caught a glimpse of a couple of women sitting behind home plate who were–get this–talking. So naturally, Dibble did what any great baseball announcer would: He gave a play-by-play of their astonishing behavior:

Those ladies right behind there, they haven’t stopped talking the whole game…They have some conversation going on. Right here…There must be a sale tomorrow going on here or something….Their husbands are going man, don’t bring your wife next time.

…now they’re back there, they’re eating ice cream and talking at the same time…”

Later:

…they’re right there, still talking…

And:

I was just thinking, those women, there’s a new series, Real Housewives of D.C., that just came out…Maybe they’re filming an episode?”

He even went so far as to circle the women on the screen with his cool pen so that viewers at home knew exactly whom he was talking about.I suspect that this is exactly the kind of raw broadcasting talent, keen insight, passion and charisma that landed Dibble, a former major league pitcher, his coveted job announcing for the Nationals, a team that’s never finished a season with a winning percentage over .500. Sociological Images has more analysis.

TOP: The “four presidents” dance with Washington Nationals mascot Screech to “Take Me Out to the Ballgame” during the seventh-inning stretch on 7/4/07, from Flickr user alykat under CC 2.0.